Writing late Egyptian hieratic

Writing late Egyptian hieratic - Sheldon Lee Gosline

Back in print, after a 2 year hiatus. For most students of Egyptology, hieratic, the cursive from of Egyptian writing, is learned long after the basics of Middle Egyptian grammar have been mastered. The study of hieratic texts is a specialty subject within a specialized field of ancient language study. Consequently, it may seem odd at first to think of a "primer" for the study of hieratic. However, hieratic was central to the literacy of ancient Egypt. The false impression that Egyptian texts were written predominently in hieroglyphs is seriously misleading and results from the modern scholarly convention of publishing and teaching hieratic texts in an artificial hieroglyphic transcription. The need for the current work to correct our approach to ancient Egyptian is therefore overdue. The approach is to teach written Egyptian language through calligraphy of sign groups associated with basic sound values and finally translated into a modern language. After an extensive introduction that provides an apology for the study of hieratic and of the method to be used, there are 38 lessons that step the student through hieratic technique, leading to both reading and writing hieratic. Also included are sign list lessons, and quizzes over each lesson, as well as a grammatical index.